New courtrooms follow new jury room at courthouse
Calling the conditions embarrassing, county officials have announced that the Santa Monica Courthouse will get new digs this fall that will cost nearly $4.5 million.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved last month a complete renovation of three modular civil courtrooms in the courthouse’s courtyard. The buildings, temporarily built for overflow cases more than a decade ago, will be replaced with an 11,933-square-foot building.
The project will temporarily displace three judges who will be moved out Santa Monica and another who will move to a different courtroom within the courthouse, said Judge Alan Haber, the presiding judge of the west district.
The project is scheduled to begin Sept. 19 with the transfer of judges and will take up to two years to complete.
Superior Court Judge Diana Wheatley, who handles unlawful detainers and civil cases limited to under $25,000, will move to Culver City. Judge John Reid who also handles unlawful detainers, short cause hearings and settlement conferences, also will move.
Judge Craig Karlan, who handles small claims appeals, short cause hearings and unlawful detainers, will move to Beverly Hills and Judge Terry Friedman, who handles unlimited civil cases will move from department J to department D, Wheatley’s old courtroom.
The modulars have outlived their useful life and are beyond cost-effective repair, officials say. The permanent building replacing them will stand two stories tall and include three new courtrooms. In the future, the building also may house a self-help area for litigants and a children’s waiting room. The free standing building also will feature a canopy above it.
Los Angeles County Board Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who represents Santa Monica, was the driving force in getting the project approved.
Judge Haber said the project was approved several years ago but the funding wasn’t adequate enough to begin construction. When county officials put the project out for bid last November, the price tag was $930,000 more than what was budgeted and the project was subsequently put on hold.
Yaroslavsky made up the nearly $1 million shortfall with part of the $2 million in county discretionary funds he has at his disposal for capital improvement projects within his district.
39C,“I got the board to approve it and then used the discretionary funds,” he said. “It is a very worthy project... It’s embarrassing that the Santa Monica Courthouse is operating with these modulars.
“It’s unacceptable conditions for the staff, the attorneys and the public,” he added.
Judge Haber said the modular buildings’ roofs leak when it rains and the courtrooms are infested with termites, rodents and have inadequate acoustics, which make it difficult to hear court proceedings.
“Don’t you think the litigants and the attorneys are entitled to a decent courthouse?” he said, calling Yaroslavsky the courthouse’s “financial angel.”
Some members of the public have scoffed at the idea of renovating the courthouse, especially when the state, county and local governments are facing multi-billion budget deficits.
But county officials point out that capital improvements are budgeted separate from the operating budget.
7E1,“When the county spends money on anything, people think it should be used for something else,” Yaroslavsky said. “This is what we are precisely supposed to do with our money, it’s capital improvements.”
Not doing anything to the courthouse will surely undermine the Superior Court’s mission, Yaroslavsky said, adding the improvements will last for 40 years.
“It’s going to bring the Santa Monica Courthouse into the 21st Century,” he said. “It’s the only courthouse on the Westside.”
Yaroslavsky, who said Judge Haber made a persuasive case for the new courtrooms, also played a vital role in getting Santa Monica Courthouse’s new $2 million jury room, which opened last summer.
Jurors in Santa Monica are able to get gourmet coffee, check their e-mail, enjoy ocean views and recline on plush couches watching DVDs on a 42-inch television while waiting for their trials to begin.
The juror assembly room, located on the third floor of the Santa Monica Courthouse, has been heralded as the “crown jewel” of the county’s court system. Juror assembly rooms are essentially a waiting area where jurors gather before being selected for a trial. Court officials say about 150 jurors are called into Santa Monica court on a daily basis and the average juror will spend two hours waiting to be selected for a trial.
The new facilities include a kitchenette area with refrigerator, microwave and vending machines.
There is an office center with coin-operated fax and photocopy machines, along with 17 cubicles where jurors can plug their laptops into digital modem lines free of charge and surf the Internet or check their e-mail.
The west side of the room is connected to a large outdoor patio where splashes of the ocean can be spotted through rows of beachfront hotels and office buildings. More than 30 lockers have been installed to give jurors a place to store their belongings for free while they are listening to lawyers pontificate in the courtrooms below.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 12, 2003. Read the original PDF.